An Apache Princess

"It was not so much his wounds as his weakness," Dr. Graham was

saying, later still that autumn night, "that led to my declaring

Blakely unfit to take the field. He would have gone in spite of me,

but for the general's order. He has gone now in spite of me, and no

one knows where."

It was then nearly twelve o'clock, and "the Bugologist" was still

abroad. Dinner, as usual since his mishap, had been sent over to him

from the officers' mess soon after sunset. His horse, or rather the

troop horse designated for his use, had been fed and groomed in the

late afternoon, and then saddled at seven o'clock and brought over to

the rear of the quarters by a stable orderly.

There had been some demur at longer sending Blakely's meals from mess,

now reduced to an actual membership of two. Sandy was a "much married"

post in the latter half of the 70's, the bachelors of the commissioned

list being only three, all told,--Blakely, and Duane of the Horse, and

Doty of the Foot. With these was Heartburn, the contract doctor, and

now Duane and the doctor were out in the mountains and Blakely on sick

report, yet able to be about. Doty thought him able to come to mess.

Blakely, thinking he looked much worse than he felt, thanks to his

plastered jowl, stood on his rights in the matter and would not go.

There had been some demur on part of the stable sergeant of Wren's

troop as to sending over the horse. Few officers brought eastern-bred

horses to Arizona in those days. The bronco was best suited to the

work. An officer on duty could take out the troop horse assigned to

his use any hour before taps and no questions asked; but the sergeant

told Mr. Blakely's messenger that the lieutenant wasn't for duty, and

it might make trouble.

It did. Captain Cutler sent for old Murray, the

veteran sergeant, and asked him did he not know his orders. He had

allowed a horse to be sent to a sick man--an officer not on duty--and

one the doctor had warned against exercise for quite a time, at least.

And now the officer was gone, so was the horse, and Cutler, being

sorely torn up by the revelations of the evening and dread of ill

befalling Blakely, was so injudicious as to hint to a soldier who had

worn chevrons much longer than he, Cutler, had worn shoulder-straps,

that the next thing to go would probably be his sergeant's bars,

whereat Murray went red to the roots of his hair--which "continued the

march" of the color,--and said, with a snap of his jaws, that he got

those chevrons, as he did his orders, from his troop commander. A

court might order them stricken off, but a captain couldn't, other

than his own. For which piece of impudence the veteran went

straightway to Sudsville in close arrest. Corporal Bolt was ordered to

take over his keys and the charge of the stables until the return of

Captain Wren, also this order--that no government horse should be sent

to Lieutenant Blakely hereafter until the lieutenant was declared by

the post surgeon fit for duty.